but i'm still stubbed up. [ male announcer ] truth is, nyquil doesn't unstuff your nose. what? [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus liquid gels speeds relief to your worst cold symptoms plus has a decongestant for your stuffy nose. thanks. that's the cold truth! i'm toure. meet the press. president obama faces the

cameras bearing great news. 2013's going to be a good year he says as long as politics doesn't get in the way. i'm s.e. cupp. let's see. it's going to be a real productive 2013. i'm steve kornacki. a month since newtown and this afternoon vice president biden handed the president the wish list for gun control. former congress joe sustek takes his turn in "the cycle." looks like a tough four years in washington. we're helping president obama break the second-term curse. there's one more on envelope to open. who won the golden globes pool? spoiler alert, the answer coming in "the back spin." tired words of president obama today as washington holds the nation up against another debt ceiling.

>> it would be a self inflicted wound on the economy, it would slow down our growth. might tip us in to recession. and ironically, would probably increase our deficit. so to even entertain the idea of this happening, of the united states of america not paying its bills, is irresponsible. it's absurd. we are not a deadbeat nation. >> thank goodness. but next, news flash, we already hit the ceiling two weeks ago. and the treasury's been using, quote, extraordinary measures to pay its bills. what does that even mean? the money shuffle can't last forever. the u.s. is out of money to pay its bills, it's already spent in less than four weeks. i have cousins that do that. they play to hold the debt ceiling hostage. aides say half the conference is ready to let the nation default.

speaker boehner will school them on the real threat later this week. even a temporary extension for, say, two or three months could rattle the markets and threaten the nation's credit rating. last time they hashled out a debt deal? summer of 2011 and we ended up more than a trillion dollars in mandatory spending cuts and congress still hasn't addressed and delayed again until march. we start with nbc's peter alexander outside the white house. peter, the president also told congress if they don't want to take the political risk of raising the limit, give him the power. he'll do it himself. >> reporter: that's clear f. you aren't going to do it, i'll do it myself. in essence today, toure, he basically dared congress not to up the debt ceiling today. obviously, one of the comments he said that i think is pretty interesting is saying in his own language, they will not collect a ransom in exchange for not crashing the economy. but before he could even make that point, the president had to try to explain this issue of the

debt ceiling and what i think you will see were digestible terms. take a listen. >> this is not a complicated concept. you don't go out to dinner and then, you know, eat all you want and then leave without paying the check. if congress wants to have a debate about maybe we shouldn't go out to dinner next time, maybe we should go to a more modest restaurant, that's fine. >> reporter: he tried to make it very clear that raising the debt ceiling does not automatically authorize future spending. he said he's more than glad to have a balanced approach going to deficit reduction talks in the future but he said that can only happen after the debt ceiling is pushed up by congress. obviously, referring to those republicans in congress that he believes have been obstructing that and what's interesting is one of the first tweets from the press secretary jay carney's twitter account after the news conference is following, basically placing blame on

republicans, if people start to stop receiving checks, if we default on the debt ceiling or if it is not raised by republicans, he said if congressional republicans refuse to pay the bills on time, social security checks and veterans benefits delayed and trying to put this now in the hands of americans that they can add to the pressure on the republicans in congress. >> all right. nbc's peter alexander, thanks. let's bring it back to the table and spin on it, now. s.e. the president incorrect there. some people go to dinner and not pay. >> i'm thankful he broke it down. i didn't understand at all. >> supposed to drop the credit card or the cash at the end. >> now it makes sense. >> pay for what you buy. pay as you go basically in this capitalist economy. but it really -- i was hoping the president to drop the trillion dollar coin and give him some leverage, some power and kind of cool to see that happen. >> yes, and sounds very serious. >> sounds very serious and it's nice theatrics to it and

disappointed once again paying politics with the economy and right refusing to work with him and party ahead of country. this is not way this is supposed to go down. >> i think to me when i was reading the so-called explosive politico article about this, it made very clear sense to me sort of immediately that this was part of a gop effort to talk not just to its base but to the left and say, if this is our leverage, shuting down the government and defaulting on the debt then we have to talk like it's actually possible. we can't threaten to do it and then say, but no one really wants to have that done so they have to say, well look at all of these members saying they're willing to go there. it's the only way they actually convince president obama and democrats that it's a credible threat. >> but don't you think doing it is wrong? >> i don't think they want to go

over. it's a pr nightmare and they're both real and perceived threats to this. but i think that they have to act like they're going to or else all the leverage is gone. >> well, there's various points of leverage here right now. you say it's a pr nightmare if we go over it. if there's a debt default, that's more than a pr nightmare. that's an economic catastrophe. >> i said real and perceived. >> that affects everybody. if you move beyond the debt ceiling, if you can take that aspect of it off the table and look for a different leverage point, republican haves two here. one is the sequester. we put it on hold for two months. $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts for march 1st. the congress right now in conjunction with the president with the power to fiddle with that. they could say we'll do it differently, taxes, spending. it's less than $1.2 trillion. they have the power of negotiation over that or else that kicks in automatically. or the continuing resolution that funds the government is

going to expire at the end of march. so again, republicans and they did this in early 2011 a couple of times. republicans could walk up to the line to shut the government down for a few days if the demand aren't met and tried in it 1995. these are the leverage points, none of this is healthy for governance but talking about using the debt ceiling for leverage, you're talking about completely and totally changing the basic norms of how congressional parties behave and flirting with economic catastrophe so the challenge for john boehner and the republicans who do at a certain level know better try somehow to get the republican caucus to fix on the sequester an the continuing resolution and not make it about the debt ceiling. >> let's hear from the world's foremost expert on the politically disastrous consequences of shutting down the government, newt gingrich. >> they have got to find in the

house a totally new strategy. i mean, confronting -- for example, everybody's talking about, okay, now comes the debt ceiling. that's, frankly, a dead loser. >> john boehner doesn't think that way and you know it. >> he has to learn to think that way. >> remember in the candy crowly debate and mitt romney trying to get the president on benghazi and there's this moment and the president just goes, please proceed, governor. it strikes me that this is almost a, please proceed gop moment because it's a disaster for the gop and for our economy if they take this to the brink with the debt ceiling and the government shutdown. he needs to be, you know, go ahead, gop, what are the cuts specifically that you want? because they have never been able to do that. what's the plan? let them, let boehner and the guys wrest wl their own caucus, whoever's willing to go to the brink and there are a significant number who are willing to take the country to the brink.

let them wristestle with it. it is not acceptable and okay to do. >> but he typically gets to that point and gives in. >> well -- >> right. >> but we are looking at this. i mean, you're right because he actually cares about the economic consequences of doing this. but i think the onus here is on the republicans. you're already seeing sign that is they're fractured about how they want to deal with this. the onus on them to say exactly what we want and so far totally unwilling to do that. he's been very, very clear from the beginning that he's not willing to mess with the debt ceiling again and i do and i have said this before. i think the landscape is very different from 2011 and to your point, s.e. in 2011, i looked at those guys and said they would do it. this time around, i think there's a significant number that would but i think there is a larger number that just like they freaked out about going over the fiscal cliff. >> they don't want to do this. >> they'll blink with the debt

ceiling. >> i don't think they want to do it. >> i don't mean to beat the dead horse but looking at the debt -- i called it a soft deadline. a softer deadline with the fiscal cliff in january 1st and meant compared to a debt default which is catastrophic for everybody -- >> catastrophic. >> right. >> the january 1st deadline, problematic. people needed unemployment insurance, things that people needed but there was the potential a week or two weeks after january 1st over the deadline to make it retroactive. if obama is going to play that game of chicken with republicans, i really believe that was the time to do it. not in front of the debt ceiling. >> he did. but he did. >> no, he called in -- >> the senate passed a bill and they left. and they left the package on the gop house congressional caucus's doorstep and said do with what you will and they're the ones who ultimately blinked and said, fine, we'll pass it without a majority of support from within our own caucus. >> he did not test the leverage of america waking up january 1st, 2nd and 3rd not having a

deal. and i think he might, might have had significantly more leverage to deal with the debt ceiling issue then trying that. he didn't test it. just skeptical about how much he'll test it now in the face of a debt ceiling. i hope i'm wrong. i'm skeptical. >> the other big story this afternoon, vice president biden makes the formal recommendations to the president on gun control. what will it take to get meaningful action if that's possible? military man and gun control advocate joe sustek brings his perspective. [ male announcer ] house rule number 46. what's good for the pot... is even better for the cup. new single serve cafe collections from maxwell house. now available for use in the keurig k-cup brewer. always good to the last drop. is efficiently absorbed in small continuous amounts. citracal slow release continuously releases calcium plus d

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president obama's news conference today also include add preview of vice president biden's much-anticipated recommendations for gun control which he handed over this afternoon. we don't know yet exactly what's in the report but here's what we do know and what the president admits, as well. it's going to be tough to get anything done. >> will all of them get through this congress? i don't know. >> let's bring in nbc's capitol hill correspondent kelly o'donnell for insight in to what congress could do with biden's report. what do we know? >> reporter: that was an important acknowledgment from the president. and you certainly get that sense around here. there are efforts under way, certainly a number of democrats trying to fashion legislation and push it through. focused on some of the things you have heard about this in discussion, things like the high-capacity clips, the gun show loophole, background checks

on people that buy guns privately or at gun shows. and not under the same rules that apply for a gun at the store. there are ideas floated and resistance, of course. you have many republicans who will say new laws will not necessarily fix the problem. today the vice president did invite a number of democrats to the white house and the white house took a photo and just released that to show us a bit of that meeting and you had in that room some democrats who have had very personal dealings with the whole gun issue. if you look at john barber of arizona, wounded in the same tragedy nearly took the life of gabrielle giffords in tucson. jackie speier who was injured working for a congressman for whom he was working. and the long island shooting and personal life experience. they get the issue in a very visceral way and are trying to

push forward some ideas so there's a lot of conversation going on. lots of plans for meetings for hearings. actually, getting something passed is another matter and we are going to need some time unfold to see if sort of public support from the outside to do something will have an impact on lawmakers who face a lot of pressures especially when you consider the influence of the nra. >> okay, kelly o'donnell, thanks very much. with us now is former pennsylvania congressman and three-star admiral joe sestak. very hard to get big, sweeping gun reform passed and there's very little that the president can do by way of executive authority that, you know, is big. for example, the assault weapons ban or banning any kind of weapons, banning high-capacity magazines, all of these things are congressional approval and what little he can do sort of

strengthening the tracking devices, you know, tracking of weapons and trafficking of weapons, mental health checks, those are things that he could do without congress but obviously don't have the teeth that a lot of gun control advocates looking for. when he gets this proposal today and looks it over, is he hoping, do you think, to see some of these big, big ticket items in it and knows it's politically difficult or hoping to see sort of the lower end things and actually maybe put some of those in to implementation? >> you know, s.e. depends upon what the president wants to take as an overall approach and i think the right approach for him would be make sure that he's very inclusive. for example, we need to have the nra at the table. they do support certain things. for example, they do want to have people who lie on background checks to actually be persecuted. >> right. >> second, i think what he has

to do is be comprehensive. take mental health. used to be 600,000 mental health beds in hospitals in america. we're down to about 50,000 now so by default are pediatric hospitals are prisons. the biggest we have are reicher's island in new york city, cook's county in chicago and l.a. county. when you begin to say that to my third example, my third point is, to be very comprehensive and practical, to sit back and say, in pennsylvania we have over 5,000 records of mental health, those who have illness, in mental health or those who are formal felons and not submitted from pennsylvania in to the national background check and i believe the president will be pragmatically and respect the nra who does defend a very good right to a gun but try to approach it that way with the public. i think he might be better able to take care of some of these bigger issues to give us a more

secure society. >> to your point, just briefly, the nixon improvement of 2008 was authored with help of the nra which tried to incentivize the states to give up some more information readily. >> absolutely right. you know -- >> congressman? >> please? >> i want to talk about the assault weapons ban and probably the most controversial part of the package to put forward. some have said there's no need to have the weapons of war. oerts said it doesn't matter, picking a certain gun and saying you can't have that gun isn't going to make a difference. we had a ban on assault weapons in the country and filled with loopho loopholes. let's put the politics aside. if we could get a real assault weapons ban, do you think realistically that would make a difference in this country? >> i try to look at the facts and in 1994, just before the assault weapons ban was put in to effect, as it wasn't perfect

but lasted a decade, about 17% of all murders of our police officers were done by assault weapons. within two years, it dropped to zero. we just had a wonderful sergeant a couple of years ago who was shot by an assault weapons that was previously banned. look, when i got under way on a navy ship, i invited by sailors to bring personal armament on board and in the gulf, we put out a target to have a second right amendment there and i also feel very strongly that the police officers here at home should not have to go in against criminals that can gain access to the same type of weapons that we were using in the military overseas and putting the s.e.a.l.s ashore, for example. no. there's pragmatic explanation in particular with this point. the keller decision is very important. it actually said for the first time as you well know individuals in america have the right to a gun and there are limits to that. by saying that, there's no

slippery slope anymore. we know we have to come up to a very pragmatic resolution of what are the limits to it? i think that this is one. >> admiral, i want to go back to what you were saying about including the nra in the conversation, trying to get them on board and the president, well, the vice president did meet with the nra. i don't have the exact language released an of the meeting but needless to say it was quite dismissive and seemed to have no interest whatsoever in working with this administration on anything and the president could reach out the hand but do you think that the nra is interested in any sort of actual gun legislation or arming more people at schools? >> well, you know, we did say that they did say that they do want to have the 88,000 individual that is lie on a background to be persecuted and

i think we should but limited resources with the law enforcement as it is. but that said, i think the major point is did they get an opportunity and continue to have an opportunity to speak at the table and let's not just demonize them. that goes a long way to when you go in to a place in pennsylvania, that it -- you come across and explain it. your don't win the point putting down that the nra says no. they're defending as a special interest group what they believe. but i think you can explain like i just tried to do, maybe nobody agrees, but there's a pragmatic reason you don't want assault weapons ban so they don't get in the hands of criminals that take down the law enforcement officials. >> congressman, we had a banner on the screen saying that mike bloomberg will be on "the rachel maddow show" and an interesting player in this pouring and is already and really pouring a lot of money in to supporting candidate who is will support gun control measures and protecting them particularly in republican primaries.

he's not looking at this just as let's elect more democrats for gun control but the republican party saying why can't we win over votes there, too? you can look back to 1994 when the assault weapons ban was enacted. 46 republicans in the house, one of them, john kasich and a lot changed about the ideological divide between the parties is shaking out and republican primary challenges never more scary and terrifying but can you see getting back to a point when several dozen republican members of the house could actually safely vote for gun control measures? >> you know, i was taken the other day by the comments that phil gingrey said talking about that rape issue and todd akin. also within that, he had said, look, i we should have universal background checks and i worked with phil on some very good veterans issues to get occupational therapists to help

the veterans coming home. yes, i do think that you can start to edge down this road in a way that does not not talk to individuals. important to remember in pennsylvania, we have a million individuals that on the hunting day want to go out there and hunt and making sure they understand we will never permit you not to have your gun legitimately goes a long way to saying this is not a party issue. it's a security issue as long as a liberty issue to have the right gun that you would like. look. we are not going to make -- this is not easy. but i do think after this tragedy in connecticut there could not be a better wake-up call for a dialogue about this. >> okay. admiral, thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having me again. up next, one week out from inauguration day. my fellow cyclists are excited and second terms have spelled trouble for past presidents so what's obama have to do to buck the trend? the answer, straight ahead in the guest spot.

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it's been a busy and productive four years and i expect the same for the next four years. i intend to carry out the agenda that i campaigned on. >> certainly has been a busy four years but presidential encores have a history of arriving to cheers and leaving to jeers. it's become known as the second term curse, inability to carry the momentum of the first four years in to the second four. from washington to eisenhower to clinton to bush, each of them and many in between found their second term marred by scandal, failure or frustration but our next guest says president obama has the chance to not only beat the odds but to join a rare if ied group whose presidencies shifted the political tides and got some tips on how to do it. i like the sound of that. don't you, s.e.?

>> uh-huh. >> in the guest spot today is professor of constitutional law at yale university and authority of "second chances" in "the atlantic." professor, you go through four sort of what you call tips for the president to have a successful second term. designate a proxy, take advantage of your youth, go big and big and undertake filibuster reform. could you quickly take us through the four points? >> most important thing is to be succeeded by a like-minded successor, a wing man or woman, sort to speak. nothing succeeds like succession. the most successful presidents basically inherited a world in which the other political party was dominant. they first won election and they won re-election and then handed off power to someone like-minded and that coalition prevailed for a long time. lincoln, he doesn't live long in to the second term but the party

prevails until herbert hoover. no democrat wins a yort in that period. the most important thing to build a platform for the party to win again the presidency and win more often than not. >> well, yeah. along those lines, modern examples, ronald reagan, set up george sr. to succeed him and reagan didn't endorse until they were over and left bush hanging a little bit but for the legacy helped to be succeeded by the vice president and bill clinton and al gore in 2000 and bill clinton rescheduling to a few days before the new hampshire primary to try to give gore the boost over bradley. it mattered very much for clinton for gore to succeed him and gore did not. looking at barack obama's position here, the natural successor candidate for 2016 would be the vice president, joe biden, but it looks like he's sort of overshadowed here by another -- somebody else with a claim, as well. hillary clinton.

how do you think that shakes snout who has the claim to be the sort of successor candidate going forward? >> well, the nice thing is they both do. you have an heir and a spare. you have a two good back-ups. and let's take thomas jefferson, because the presidents who have done this in the past are ronald reagan, franklin roosevelt, abe lincoln and thomas jefferson. thomas jefferson hands off power to his secretary of state james madison. so, both secretaries of state historically and vice presidents have been plausible successors. >> you know, in your advice to the president to make sure his second term is a success and not a failure, like we have said, appoint a successor, you also say to go big with things like immigration reform. you tell him to campaign aggressively in 2014. unlike in 2010 against republicans. all of which you think might

help but wouldn't lowering unemployment, bringing the economy to full recovery, balancing a budget, wouldn't all of this also help assure a great second term? what am i missing here? >> nothing. the best politics is a good policy. >> right. >> barack obama, of course, believes that his -- that immigration reform is actually good policy. it will help actually bring down the deficit if we can get a bunch of high achieving immigrants to come pay my social security, doing voter -- doing electoral reform is good policy to actually vindicate the right to vote and those people whose rights vindicates may be more likely to vote democrat so the two happily for him work together. >> all right. you say most second terms are disastrous, disappointing,

disastrous and a group of bad things there's a best so who had the best second term out of all of the presidents? >> i think i'd say thomas jefferson who bequeaths basically a 2k0dominance to his political party to 1860. the federalists dominated. washington and adams and leaves in a world in which he hands off power to his secretary of state for eight years and hands off power to his secretary of state for eight years and adams and that leads to the world of jackson and that's the dominant political coalition all the way to abe lincoln. >> all right. professor, thank you so much. >> thank you. president's second term legacy starts next monday with inauguration and already digging in his heels against republicans on the debt ceiling saying today, quote, we are not a deadbeat nation.

ann says republicans just cannot stand for smart people being in charge. ann, i could not agree more. >> that's exactly right. that's the problem. >> amen. >> like us on facebook and let us know what you expect of the president's second term and the debt ceiling and budget battles. up next, crime and punishment. america has more people locked up than any other nation in the world and what price to our wag lets and to our society? the author of "jailhouse blues" joins us next. [ roasting firewood ]

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this reduced sodium soup says it may help lower cholesterol, how does it work? you just have to eat it as part of your heart healthy diet. step 1. eat the soup. all those veggies and beans, that's what may help lower your cholesterol and -- well that's easy [ male announcer ] progresso. you gotta taste this soup. in the '70s most predicted the prison system to fade away. they surmised that prison does not deter crime significantly and people with economic opportunities unlikely to commit crime and those who went to prison for any crime were likely to commit crime in the future. in 1973, the national advisory commission on criminal justice standards recommended no new

prisons built as they have a shocking record of failure. allegedly, because prisons create crime rather than preventing it. we were incarcerating around 350,000 people. now we have over 2.2 million inmates, the world's highest rate. what are we doing? with us now is todd pitach who wrote "the jailhouse blues" for sat the saturday evening post." how are you, sir? >> good. good to be here. >> when you consider prison has no correctional aspect and criminalizes it takes in and creating the problem or adding to the problem, prison is not really helping america but it's actually hurting america. isn't it? >> absolutely. i mean, you look at the statistics today. we're spending $40 billion a year, those are the costs that, the direct cost of housing and warehousing these 2.2 million inmates. and we're spending very little on -- yeah, by the way, that figure doesn't take in to

account the -- incall kuible cost to families and lost lives in the situation. the system's broken down. >> well, i was looking at a really interesting article in "the new york times" about a young man who shot and killed his girlfriend and his girlfriend's parents really felt strongly, came from sort of a religious background and felt strongly they needed to be able to forgive him and that they wanted to take part in the process of coming to terms with what he had done and the whole focus was to sort of all of them to be able to come to grips with it and have him back in the community to live a full life, i mean, after serving time, but they went through a process of restoretive justice to give the victims themselves more of a voice in the actual criminal justice system. i mean, do you think that's the

sort of reform, restorive justice as an option for victims? >> that's a great model. one of the programs that i wrote about in my story in "the saturday evening post" is council for unity. they go in to prisons and they get inmates talking. often rival gang members. restoretive justice is an idea that gives people an opportunity to begin to open up and begin to experience compassion in different ways and can be an interesting almost like a weapon against some of these guys because when they open up, they actually begin to experience remorse, begin to face what they've done. and if they have the opportunity to have very rarely do people have the opportunity to have contact with victims, but i think it's helpful for everyone when people realize when they express remorse and realize the extent of the heinous things they may have done. >> but todd, you wrote about eastern state penitentiary in

philadelphia which was planned by quakers to be a place of pent nans and reflected on the sins, hence, penitentiary. it was a place of abject misery. that said, religion has been able to play something of a successful role in helping to reform prisons. just this past year, the louisiana conference of catholic bishops worked to pass prison reform in louisiana and parole reform, specifically, with bobby jindal that would alleviate crowding, make the prison both a better place to be and also lower recidivism. what role can religion play talking about this problem? >> look. i definitely think everything that opens people's conscienceness about to crimes committed is a great role. education, religion is part of that or can be part of that

process. has an enormous role to play. i just want to mention something with regarding eastern state. we look at that today and it's a tourist site. you can visit it. and we look at it and said, god, how horrible? what they don't realize is at least at that time people were asking more serious questions than they are today and we've taken our prisons so far out of sight that we don't see that in an awful lot of cases they're very much worse than they were 200 years ago. >> yeah. you know, todd, when we talk about the topic of prison reform to the extent there is going to be prison reform, that's going to require a political solution and looking at where the pressure comes in the political system, i wonder, how many states can ex-cons and not even have the vote. where is the political constituency that's going to be able to apply pressure on the political system for real prison reform? >> well, and i think there's another layer to it, too, which

is if you break the problem down, we have a sort of historical vexing problem about what to do with people who break the law. when's the role of prison? that's a problem that's global. nobody really has ever gotten it right. but the more recent problem which you opened the segment on which is the american problem. and we know why that started. we know when it started. and the problem is i think that a lot of people in law enforcement know what the solution maybe, which is to this burgeoning prison population and that's to change the way we're approaching drug laws and drug prosecutions and that's where it's not at this point doesn't need a political will to change the laws. but that would be the starting point to reducing prison population. >> and also, if i could say, i think there is a case that could be and should be made to fiscal conservatives if we frame the argument in the correct way. >> no. that's absolutely right and you are right, todd, the large rise in the inmate population since the '70s is largely because of

the war on drugs and nonviolent felons todd pitock, thank you very much. >> thank you. up next, why you can't trust the golden globes to predict the oscars. only good for comedy like this. >> katherine bigelow nominated tonight. i haven't following the controversy but when it comes to torture, i trust the lady who spent three years married to james cameron.

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"the hunger games" is one of the biggest films of the year and what i call the six weeks to get in to this dress. >> aung lee is nominated for "the life of pi" which is what i call the period after taking the dress off. >> thank you for killing whoever you had to kill for getting me up here today. >> that is surprise. >> we see a man more interesting than the legend. >> one of the special guests. that was bill clinton's husband. >> it was bill rodham clinton. >> the glitz and glamour and at times bizarre, i'm looking at you, jodie foster, of hollywood were out in full force last night for 70th annual golden globe awards. biggest surprise of the night was ben affleck's "argo" beeting "lincoln." isn't this the year of "linco

"lincoln"? i'm going to shift out of that voice. >> keep it going. >> the french revolution won bi with its transcendent actors anne hathaway and hugh jackman. on the small screen, hbo's brooklyn hipster comedy "the girls" and the gripping tv movie on sarah palin's vice presidential run "game change" and showtime's byzantine terrorism thriller "homeland" they all took top honors. here at "the cycle" we'd like to congratulation traci for winning the office pool. they share the bragging rights but there's no sharing when it comes to toure. that's until february 24th when

our next showdown take place. they can't submit the same ballots because affleck is not even nominated there. what a dichotomy, isn't that right toure. let's backspin on -- >> bravo, bravo. >> -- what i just said. >> really good. >> i understand. >> you did it in about three different voices. that's acting, sir. >> but toure, you're our point man on this. what the hell happened? >> just in case it wasn't clear, i also did win the office pool with traci. >> did you see her answers and change yours? >> no, i didn't. >> electoral map style? i'm going to ask traci. >> it is the year of -- still leaving off that. >> it is the year of lincoln. the globes are historically a bad oscar predictor. in the last eight years the globes have only twice predicted the oscar winner. the globes pishged two favorite film was of the year. on "slumdog millionaire" had

this foreign air to them. obviously the hollywood foreign press will pick up on those. the hollywood foreign press is really bad at picking what the oscars are going to pick. the hollywood foreign press is 800 people, media members. the academy is 4,000 movie professionals. argo is a fantastic picture. congratulations to ben. he made a great movie, but what happened last night convinces me even further that it is the year of lincoln and steve spielberg and lincoln and daniel day-lewis will get the top honors on february 24th. >> i do watch the golden globes for the hill lairity. i watch for the highs and lows and train wrecks. here is what i left with. why does anne hathaway bother me so much? i can't put my finger on it, but for a while now i have found her to be progressively annoying me more. >> yeah. >> there was the glamour interview in which she talked about her new husband saying, quote, he's a good man. he's beyond intelligent. he loves fearlessly. his beliefs are beautiful.

that makes me want to take my finger and stick it in my eye and swirl it around. that is so nauseating. and then there was this last night at the golden globes. >> thank you for this lovely blunt object that i will forever more use as a weapon against self-doubt. >> does she bother anyone else because i don't want to just be mean. if she does, please go to our facebook page and tell me why she bothers you. >> or maybe if there's someone else that bothers you why. >> sure. >> let's open it up. >> no. >> i got nothing else to say except i remember when king ralph swept the golden globes -- >> that 234e6r happened. >> my imagination. up next, toure's message to the president. why he says this may be one of the most crucial moments for the entire obama presidency. [ male announcer ] in blind taste tests, even ragu users chose prego. prego?! but i've bought ragu for years. [ thinking ] wonder what other questionable choices i've made? i choose date number 2!

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we want to envision ourselves as a nation of vigilantes protecting ourselves with our guns but that's not what's happening. we're an overarmed country helping gun makers get richer. believing the myth that we're protecting and not endanger ourselves. we're a nation that leads the world in mass killings, a national with just one gun per person. the fbi says there's only 200 legally justified self-defense hom sighed a year and 309,000 gun deaths a year. tomorrow the vice president will

send his boss recommendations for the white house's gun control package. this is part of what could be the most crucial moment in the obama administration. perhaps the most important legislation they'll ever propose. because gun laws do work. studies have shown firearm deaths are significantly lower in states with stricter gun legislation. this map shows the ten states with the strongest gun laws and the ten with the lowest gun death rates. the correlation the seven states in green is strong. banning assault weapons, requiring trigger locks, and mandating safe storage works. the nra would like you to believe no legislation woot help. no one obvious law could have stopped adam lanza but we can make our world safer. public policy is meant to be aspir rational, to try to make the world better. the white house knows it just as it knows the right has gone far extreme on this, so far into second amendment absolutism, if it's not any weapon anywhere they will lead you down the